An Iliad

by Alessandro Baricco

  As two famished lions in the mountains fight furiously over a dead deer, so the two began to fight for the body of Cebriones. Hector had taken the dead man by the head and wouldn’t let go. Patroclus had grabbed him by the feet and tried to drag him away. Around them a savage struggle arose, Trojans against Achaeans, over the corpse.

  We fought for hours over that man who by now was in the dust, heedless of chariots and horses and all that had been his life. When, in the end, we managed to drive the Trojans back, some of us seized the body and dragged it far from the fray to strip it. But Patroclus remained in the heart of the fight. It was no longer possible to stop him. Three times he hurled himself on the Trojans with a terrible cry, and killed nine men. But when he launched himself the fourth time, like a god, then, Patroclus, suddenly we all saw the end of your life appear. It was Euphorbus, and he struck you from behind, in the back. He arrived in his chariot, advancing through the fray. There was dust everywhere, an enormous cloud of dust. You didn’t see him coming. He appeared as if out of nowhere, suddenly, behind you, and you couldn’t see him. I saw him. From close up he thrust the spear in your back … Do you remember Euphorbus, Patroclus, do you remember that we saw him in battle and remarked on his beauty; his hair hung long over his shoulders, and wasn’t he the most beautiful of all? … He struck you in the back and then, immediately, dashed off to hide among his men, in fear of what he had just done.

  Patroclus was motionless, stunned. His eyes rolled upward. His legs still supported that handsome body but no longer felt it. I remember his head lolling forward after the blow, and the helmet falling in the dust. That helmet, never would I have thought to see it grimed with dust and blood, on the ground. The helmet that had covered the head and beautiful face of godlike Achilles, I saw it rolling on the ground amid the horses’ hooves, in the dust and the blood.

  Patroclus took a few steps, searched for something that might hide or save him. He didn’t want to die. Around him everything had come to a halt. Certain deaths are rituals, but you can’t understand. No one stopped Hector when he approached. This you can’t understand. Into the fray he went, with none of us able to stop him. He came within a step and then thrust the spear through his belly. And Patroclus fell to the ground. We all saw him, this time, crumple to the ground, and then Hector, leaning over him, looking him in the eyes and speaking to him in that icy silence.

  “Patroclus, you thought you would come here and destroy my city, right? You imagined returning home with a ship full of Trojan woman and Trojan treasure. Now you know that Troy is defended by brave men, and the bravest is called Hector. You are nothing now. You are food for the vultures. He won’t be much help to you, your friend Achilles, no matter how brave he is. It’s he, right, who sent you here. It’s he who told you, ‘Don’t come back, Patroclus, until you have ripped open Hector’s chest and bloodied his tunic’ And you, you fool, listened to him.”

  Patroclus was dying, but still he found the strength to speak. “You can boast now, Hector, because you have vanquished me. But the truth is that to die was my destiny. The gods killed me, and among men Euphorbus was first. You, who are now ending my life, are only the third, Hector. You are only the last of those who killed me. And now listen to me, and don’t forget what I have to tell you. You are a dead man who is walking, Hector. Nothing can save you from your atrocious fate. The little life you have left—Achilles will come and tear it away from you.”

  Then the veil of death enveloped him. His soul flew away and went to Hades, mourning lost strength, lost youth.

  Hector placed his foot on Patroclus’s chest and drew the bronze spear out of the wound. The body rose up and then, lacerated, fell back in the dust. Hector stood there looking at it. He said something in a low voice. Then, as if seized by a fury, he was about to attack Automedon and would have killed him, but the swift horses carried him away, the horses that the gods gave to Achilles carried him away from Hector’s grasp, from his rage and from death.

  I died two years later, during the voyage on which I was seeking to return home from Troy. It was Neoptolemus who burned my body. He was the son of Achilles. Now my bones lie in a land whose name I don’t even know. Maybe it’s right that it ended like that, since I would never have been able truly to return from that war, from that bloodshed, and from the death of two boys I couldn’t save.

  Antilochus

  The first to realize that Patroclus was dead was Menelaus. He rushed to the spot and stood beside the body with his spear and his shield thrust forward, ready to kill anyone who approached. Euphorbus arrived, the one who had struck Patroclus first: he wanted to get his trophy. But Menelaus shouted at him, “Stay away, if you don’t want to die! You know what happened to your brother when he challenged me. He didn’t go home on his own two legs, to bring joy to his wife and his parents. I’ll kill you, too, if you don’t get away.” Euphorbus was the most beautiful of the Trojans. He had shining curls wound around his head and fastened with pins of gold and silver. He told Menelaus that he would avenge his brother, and hurled the spear at him. The bronze tip broke on the shield, and Menelaus leaped on him and plunged the spear into his throat, driving it in with the full weight of his arm. The point passed through his graceful neck, and his hair was bathed in blood. He fell to the ground like an olive tree, young, beautiful, strong, covered with white blossoms, suddenly shattered by a bolt of lightning in a storm.

  Menelaus was bending down to strip him of his armor when he realized that Hector was rushing at him, with a terrible cry. Frightened, he abandoned the body of Patroclus and began to retreat, looking all around for someone to help him. He saw Ajax and shouted, “Patroclus is dead, Ajax, and Hector is taking his armor. Come, we have to defend him.” Ajax turned and his heart was moved. He rushed to his aid. They returned to Patroclus and saw that Hector had taken the glorious armor and now had drawn his sword to cut off the head and abandon the body there, a meal for the dogs. Ajax set on him with such ferocity that Hector gave up his prey and withdrew among his men. Ajax bent over the body of Patroclus and covered it with his immense towering shield: he stood there as a lion stands beside its cubs when it catches the scent of the hunters.

  The Trojans realized that Hector had run from Ajax, and they looked at him in bewilderment. I remember that I heard Glaucus shouting, “You’re a coward, Hector, you didn’t challenge Ajax because he’s stronger than you, and now you have left him the body of Patroclus, which would have been a precious prize for us!” Then Hector did something that no one will forget. He ran to join his companions who were carrying Patro-clus’s armor into the city, a trophy. He stopped them, took off his own armor, and put on the immortal armor that Achilles had given to his friend to go into battle. He put it on and it became his, the immortal armor of Achilles. His body in that armor, he seemed born for that armor, and suddenly he shone with strength and vigor. Brilliant he strode before all his men in the gleaming armor that for years they had looked at with terror, and now it was he who showed it off before their eyes.

  They looked in amazement, Glaucus, Medon, Thersilochus, Asteropaeus. They watched him pass, rapt—Deisenor, Hippo-thous, Phorcys, Chromius, Ennomus—and to them Hector cried, “Fight alongside me, allies of a thousand tribes. I tell you that whoever can bring the body of Patroclus among the Trojans, overpowering Ajax, will share it with me and the glory will be equal for me and for him.” And in a fury they charged toward the Achaeans.

  Ajax saw them coming and realized that neither he nor Menelaus could stop them. So he called for help, and first Idomeneus, then Meriones and Oilean Ajax and other brave men heard him and rushed to his side. The Trojans charged in a mass, all behind Hector. Around Ajax the Achaeans were arrayed with a single heart, protected by the bronze shields. The first wave of Trojans pushed them back, forcing them to abandon the body. But Ajax led his men to the attack again, until they managed to seize it from the hands of the Trojans. It was a tremendous struggle, a fearful contest. Toil and sweat grimed the legs and knees, the fe
et and hands and eyes of those who were fighting for the body. From every direction men grabbed the body of Patroclus and pulled, and it was like the skin of an animal when it is stretched for drying. Patroclus …

  Nor did Achilles yet know that his beloved friend was dead. His tent was far away, near the black ships, and Patroclus had gone to die at the walls of Troy. He couldn’t know. I imagined him there, in his tent, still thinking that soon Patroclus would return, after driving the Trojans away, and he would give back the armor, and they would feast together, and … and while he was thinking these things, at that very moment Patroclus was already a corpse, contested on every side, and around him men were killing one another, and sharp spears flashed, and bronze shields clashed in the din. This we should learn about suffering: it is the child of Zeus. And Zeus is the child of Cronus.

  And the story of Xanthus and Balius? On the subject of suffering … they were Achilles’ immortal steeds, and had carried Patroclus into battle. Well, when Patroclus fell, Autome-don led them far from the fray, thinking to get them to safety by galloping to the ships. But when they reached the middle of the plain they stopped, suddenly, immobilized, because their hearts were broken by grief at the death of Patroclus. Autome-don tried to make them go, with the whip and with gentle entreaties, but they wouldn’t return to the ships. They stood motionless, like a marble monument on a man’s tomb, with their muzzles brushing the earth, and they wept, says the legend, their eyes wept burning tears. They were not born to suffer old age or death, they were immortal. But they had run beside man, and from him they had learned grief: because there is nothing on the face of the earth, nothing that breathes or walks, nothing so unhappy as man. Finally, abruptly, the two horses launched into a gallop, but in the direction of the fighting. Automedon tried to stop them, but there was nothing to do. They headed for the thick of it, as they would have done in any battle, you see? But Automedon, in the chariot, was alone, he had to hold the reins. He couldn’t take up his weapons, and so he could kill no one. They carried him among the warriors and into the tumult, but the truth is that he couldn’t fight, the truth is that it seemed a mad chariot, which passed through the battle like a wind without striking a blow, absurd and marvelous.

  Then the Achaeans realized that they were about to lose that battle. Some, like Idomeneus, abandoned the field, giving up. The others thought of returning to the ships, but without ceasing to fight, and trying to carry off the body of Patroclus.

  Someone said, too, that Achilles had to be told what had happened, and all agreed, except that they didn’t know whom to send. They needed the fighters there, and then maybe no one wanted to be the one to bring Achilles the news of Patroclus’s death. Finally they chose a boy whom Achilles was fond of and who, at that moment, was fighting far from the body of Patroclus. And I was that boy.

  My name is Antilochus. I am one of Nestor’s sons. When my father left for the war in Troy I was too young to go with him. So I stayed home. But five years later, without saying anything to my father, I took a ship and landed on the beach at Troy. I introduced myself to Achilles and I told him the truth, that I had run away to fight beside him. My father will kill me, I said. Achilles admired my courage and my beauty. And so it was. I became one of them, and, with a boy’s folly, I fought beside them in that war, until the day when, in the middle of the fighting, I saw Menelaus hurrying toward me, in fact he was searching for me, and when he got close he looked me in the eye and said, “Patroclus is dead, Antilochus. I would never have wanted to bring you such news, but the truth is that Patroclus is dead, killed by the Trojans.” I couldn’t say anything, only I began to cry, right there, in the middle of the battle. I heard the voice of Menelaus shouting at me, “You must run to the ships, to Achilles, and tell him that Patroclus is dead, and that he has to do something, because we’re trying to carry his body to safety, but the Trojans are on us and are too strong for us. Go, hurry.”

  And I went. I took off my armor so that I would be lighter and ran across the plain, weeping all the way. When I reached the ships, I found Achilles standing and scanning the horizon, trying to see what was happening in the battle. I stopped in front of him. I don’t know where I looked when I began to speak: “Achilles, son of brave Peleus, something happened that should never have happened, and I have to bring you the news. Patroclus is dead, and the Achaeans are fighting for his naked body, because Hector has taken his armor.”

  A black cloud of grief enveloped the hero. He fell to the ground and with both hands began clawing at the dirt and pouring it on his head and his handsome face. From the tents the women made slaves by war came running and around him began wailing with grief, falling to their knees and beating their breasts. Achilles sobbed. I leaned over him and held his hands tight in mine, because I didn’t want him to kill himself with those hands and a sharp blade. He gave a tremendous cry and called on his mother.

  “Mother! I asked for sorrow to come upon the Achaeans, to make them pay for their insult to me, but how can I be happy now? Now I have lost forever the one whom I honored above all my companions and whom I loved like myself! He died far from his homeland, and I wasn’t there to protect him. I was sitting in my tent, you see? I was sitting beside my ship, like a useless weight on the earth. While he was dying and so many were dying under Hector’s assault, I was here, I who am the best of the Achaeans in battle … Oh, if only anger would vanish forever from men’s hearts, which can make even the wisest into fools, slipping into their souls with the sweetness of honey, then rising like smoke into their minds. I must forget my bitterness. I must go away from here and find the man who killed my beloved companion. Then I, too, will die, I know, Mother, but first with my spear I want to crush the life of that man, and around me sow so much death that the women of Troy will long for the days when this war was fought without me.” These things he said, weeping, but still he lay there, in the dust.

  Then I said to him, “Rise, Achilles, the Achaeans need you now. They are trying to defend the body of Patroclus from the Trojans, but the fight is brutal and many are dying. Hector is in a fury. He wants that corpse, he wants to cut off the head to stick on a pole and raise it aloft as a trophy. Don’t stay here, Achilles. What sort of dishonor will it be if you let Patroclus end as food for Trojan dogs?”

  Achilles looked at me. “How can I return to battle?” he said. “My armor is in the hands of the Trojans, and I can’t fight with armor that isn’t worthy of me. What hero would? How can I?”

  Then I said, “I know, your armor is in the hands of Hector, but even so, without your armor, rise up and let the Trojans see you. They’ll be terrified, and our men will at least be able to catch their breath.”

  And so he rose. He walked toward the edge of the trench, toward the battle. He could see our men running back, carrying high in their arms the body of Patroclus, and Hector was pursuing them with his men, following without pity. It was like taking carrion away from a starving lion. They tried to keep him away, the two Ajaxes, and every time he came back, like a fire that suddenly flares up to attack a city. Achilles stopped on the higher edge of the trench. He had no armor on now, but he shone like a flame, like a golden cloud. He gazed at the battle and let out a loud cry, like the peal of a trumpet. The Trojans were petrified. The horses with their beautiful manes reared up, scenting the odor of death. Three times Achilles cried out, and three times terror descended into the hearts of the Trojans. We saw them turn their chariots and flee, leaving the battle, consumed by anguish.

  When our men placed the body of Patroclus on a litter, in safety, Achilles approached. He placed his hands on the chest of his beloved friend, gently, those hands that were used to killing. He placed them on his chest and began to sob without respite, like a lion whose cubs have been stolen by hunters out of the depths of the forest.

  Agamemnon

  They wept over the body all night. They had washed away the blood and dust and had anointed the wounds with the richest unguent. So that he would not lose his beauty, they
had dripped nectar and ambrosia in his nostrils. Then they had placed the body on the funeral bed, wrapped in soft linen, and covered by a white robe. Patroclus: he was only a boy. I’m not even sure he was a hero. Now they had made him a god.

  Dawn rose over their laments, and the day came that I would remember forever as the day of my end. They brought Achilles armor that the most skilled Achaean artisans had made for him that night, working with divine inspiration. They placed it at his feet. He had embraced the body of Patroclus and was sobbing. He turned to look at the armor, and his eyes glittered with a sinister light. It was armor such as no one had ever seen or worn. It seemed made by a god for a god. It was a temptation that Achilles never could have resisted.

  So finally he rose and left the body and, shouting, and striding among the ships, called the men to assemble. I realized that our war would be decided then and there when I saw even the ships’ pilots coming, and the kitchen stewards, men who never joined the assemblies. But that day they, too, were present, drawing close around the heroes and princes to know their fate. I waited until they were seated. I waited until Ajax arrived, until Odysseus took his place, in the first row. They were limping because of their wounds. Then, last of all, I entered the assembly.

  Achilles stood up. Everyone was silent. “Agamemnon,” he said, “it wasn’t a good idea to quarrel, you and I, over a girl. If only she had died right away, as soon as she came to my ship, so many Achaeans wouldn’t have bitten the infinite earth while I sat far away, a prisoner of my rage. What’s done is done: it’s time to master our hearts and forget the past. Today I put aside my anger and return to the battle. You assemble the Achaeans and urge them to fight with me, so that the Trojans will never again sleep beside our ships.”

  On every side the men rejoiced. In all that clamor I began to speak. I remained seated in my place and asked them to be silent. I, the king of kings, had to ask for silence. Then I said, “Many have reproached me because I took from Achilles his prize of honor that day. And now I know I was wrong. But even the gods make mistakes! Folly has light feet and she doesn’t touch the ground, but she walks in the heads of men, leading them to ruin: she seizes them, one by one, when it most pleases her. She seized me that day, took possession of my senses. Now I want to compensate for that mistake by offering you infinite gifts, Achilles.”